Although President Donald Trump has faltered in fully implementing some of his biggest campaign promises, he has been very good at packing the federal courts with officials that, should they all get confirmed, would change federal law for decades. Perhaps irreversibly.

Trump has already outpaced both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama on judicial nominations, with five judges confirmed since January, including Associate Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. Not surprisingly, those judges exist far outside the legal mainstream. They align far more with the extremism of Justice Clarence Thomas than with the problematically squishy jurisprudence of moderate conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy.